


Needled

by the_ragnarok



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: BDSM, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Needle play, Relationship Negotiation, background root/shaw - Freeform, nonsexual kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-27 16:03:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6290905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_ragnarok/pseuds/the_ragnarok
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you have to do it <i>here</i>?" John sounds like he's going to choke.</p><p>"People look at us funny when we do it in the park," Harold says.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Needled

"Do you have to do it _here_?" John sounds like he's going to choke.

"People look at us funny when we do it in the park," Harold says, and winces slightly when Root pokes another needle through the skin on the back of his wrist. The needle is only twenty gauge and its entry barely hurts enough to register; Harold is just responding to the sight of sharp things moving through his skin. He adds, "Not really," just in case. People don't always understand when he's sarcastic.

Root inserts another needle. Blood wells up. She mops it with a bit of sterile gauze. "You should really let me do your stomach sometimes," she says. "Lots more room. Ooh, I could do a fractal design!"

Across the room, John is radiating animosity. Root smiles at Harold with malevolent glee.

"This is enough for me, thank you," Harold says, inspecting the back of his hand. Root did a neat job on it, needles poking in alternating directions, evenly spaced. The endorphin rush is already beginning to hit, a feeling like finding the calm in the storm. "I prefer to limit my aesthetic choices to my wardrobe."

"Suit yourself," Root says, and then giggles at her own joke. "My turn next?"

"Of course. Lower back?"

Root looks at him through lowered eyelashes. "We could do breasts." 

Harold is half-certain that if he ever took her up on her flirtations, she'd end up eating his head like a female preying mantis; that she's testing him, maybe, or simply doesn't make much of a distinction between violence and sex.

John is still in the corner. If he were a cat, his ears would be flat to his head and he'd be hissing. Hurriedly, Harold says, "Lower back it is."

"I could do your boobs," Shaw says from her vantage point on the couch. "I'm good with needles."

"You could." Root perks up. "Oh! Maybe you and Harold could--"

"No." The word is spoken simultaneously by Harold, Shaw, and John. Root pouts at them. 

Later, he lets John take the needles out, disinfect and apply pressure to the tiny punctures. "I could do it for you," John says, not for the first time.

John has been forced to do enough things he hated for one lifetime without Harold adding unnecessarily to the count. Harold can't say that, though. "Why does it bother you so much?"

John stares at him. "She has way too much fun making you bleed."

Harold shrugs, uncomfortably. John's not wrong. He doesn't quite know how to explain that that is part of the appeal: Root isn't afraid to break him, and maybe at times Harold needs to be a little broken. Not a lot; just enough to keep his sharp edges.

This isn't something he wants to explain to John, who has had a lifetime of the broken and sharp, and has surely earned some tenderness by now. It's a tragedy that nobody better than Harold is around to supply it, but Harold's selfishly glad of it at the same time.

"It's mutual," Harold says at last. That much is true. There is good, clean satisfaction to watching Root calm as the endorphin rush takes her. Not as satisfying as the ardent look in John's eyes when Harold fastens a collar around his neck, but enjoyable nonetheless. "If you really hate it so much...."

"I'm not saying you should stop."

"Neither am I." Harold pauses. "But I could wait until you weren't around."

John shakes his head. "No. I'd rather know." He smooths the bandage on Harold's wrist and kisses over it. Harold takes his hand and kisses it in return.


End file.
